How To Mend A Broken Heart

Fletch watched and waited—waited for his meaning to sink in. It didn’t take long.

Tess narrowed her eyes. Was Fletch thinking what she thought he was thinking? She shook her head at him. ‘No. No way.’

‘You’re perfect, Tess.’

She shook her head again, mentally recoiling from the plea in his wattle-leaf gaze. ‘No.’

‘I know this is kind of out of the blue—’

‘Kind of?’ Tess spluttered.

‘I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t stuck.’

Tess stared at him, wondering when he was going to grow a second head. ‘Putting everything else aside, I’m leaving for the UK tomorrow.’

‘It’s just until after Trish is back on her feet. A couple of months.’

Tess blinked. ‘I have a job, Fletch.’

Fletch snorted. He’d always thought Tess squandering her critical care skills in a geriatric facility was such a monumental waste of a highly skilled nurse, even if it was to his advantage now.

She glared at him. ‘That I love. Where I get an enormous amount of respect and job satisfaction.’

It might just be a little nursing-home in the middle of the Devonshire countryside but people depended on her. The staff and the residents. When she’d needed a place to hide and lick her wounds they’d taken her in and given her a direction for her life. They’d helped her function again.

‘I’m sure they’d understand if you explained the circumstances. I can recompense you if it’s money you’re worried about.’

Tess shook her head at his utter gall. Had he thought she’d just agree? They’d been virtual strangers for the past nine years and he expected her to just … comply? And that splashing some money around would sweeten the pot? Sure, she loved Jean, he knew that. He knew how close they’d been. But it was still a big gamble for him to take—betting the bank on her.

The woman who had already turned her back on his family.

‘So this is it?’ she demanded. ‘This is your brilliant plan? Ask your ex-wife? Who just happens to be here at the same time you need someone to look after your mother? That’s crazy! What would you have done if I hadn’t been in town?’

‘It’s not crazy. It makes absolute sense. You’re the perfect person to ask. And, yes, the timing has been perfect too but, frankly, Tess, I would have gone to England to get you.’

‘To get me?’ Fletch held up his hands in a placatory manner.

‘To ask you,’ he amended.

Tess wasn’t placated. ‘How about this, Fletch? How about you give up your job and look after your mum instead? Trish’s been doing it for two years. Surely you can take a lousy couple of months off to do your bit.’

Fletch nodded. ‘And I will. If you won’t … I will. But studies like this are so important, Tess. The results can help the way we treat acute head injury. What we learn from them can make a real difference to neurological outcomes. This is critical stuff, Tess.’

‘Someone else can do it,’ she snapped.

‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘Someone else could … but this is what I do.’ He placed his hand on his chest. ‘This is my field of expertise.’ And his passion—Tess could hear it lacing every syllable. But chasing after medical rainbows wasn’t going to bring Ryan back. She stood up, the metal chair legs scraping against the terracotta tiles.

‘No, Fletcher. I’m sorry about your study, I really am, but I do not want to do this.’

He rose too and opened his mouth to interject and she held up a finger, silencing him. She looked into his determined face, his jaw set, his hand thrust on a hip, and she knew he didn’t get it. Didn’t understand why she’d be rejecting his perfectly rational plan.

He didn’t understand how just being around them—him and Jean—would be like a hot knife to her chest every day. How the reminders of Ryan that she was able to keep rigorously at bay on the other side of the world would be torturous.

It was suddenly vitally important that he understand. Vitally.

‘I get by, okay? I make it through each day and I sleep at night and my life is on an even keel. It may not seem very exciting to you—I’m not setting the world on fire with my cutting-edge research, but it took a while to reach this place and it works for me, Fletch. I don’t want to undo it.’

Fletch felt his breath catch as the fierce glow of her amber eyes beseeched him. He held her gaze, ignoring the anguish he saw there. ‘I came home the other day to a blaring alarm and smoke pouring out of the oven. She’d baked some biscuits and forgotten about them.’

He refused to look away, refused to back down. His mother was his priority and Tess was the answer. He needed her.

Whatever the emotional impact.

He was pushing her, he knew that, but listening to her talk had him thinking that maybe this was exactly what Tess needed also. Maybe she needed to start living a life where she more than just got by.

It was criminal that she was living this half-life stashed away in the English countryside where nobody knew her past and she could eke out an existence by pretending nothing had happened. That her whole world hadn’t come crashing down and sucked her into the deepest, darkest despair.

Maybe it was time for both of them to confront the past and deal with it. To talk and grieve together instead of separately. He’d let her deny and avoid all those years ago because her sorrow had been all-consuming and he’d been walking through a minefield he’d had no idea how to navigate whilst suffering his own debilitating grief.

He hadn’t pushed her back then.

But maybe it was finally time to push.

Tess swallowed as his intense look seemed to bore a hole right through her middle. It made her feel ill thinking about Jean almost burning the place down but her ex-mother-in-law wasn’t her responsibility.

She was ex for a reason.

And she didn’t want to get sucked back into lives that were too closely entwined with the tragic events that had defined all their lives since.

It just would be too hard.

She shook her head and turned away. ‘Goodbye, Fletcher.’

Fletch shut his eyes as she whirled away, heading for the door. Damn it! He’d felt sure he’d be able to convince her. He opened his eyes, resigned to letting it go. He’d tried. But he had to respect her decision.

Tess stalked into the apartment. Wheel of Fortune had finished, the show’s theme song blaring out. Jean was nowhere to be seen.

‘Jean?’ Tess called, reaching for the remote. Nothing. Not that anything could be heard over the roar of the television. ‘Jean?’ she called again, hitting the mute button.

‘Tess?’

Tess walked quickly towards the feeble, panicked voice she could hear coming from the kitchen area. ‘Jean?’

‘Here … I’m here.’

Tess rounded the bench to find Jean sitting on the floor, her back propped against the fridge, staring down at two raw eggs, one in each hand, the shells crushed, yolk oozing between her fingers. She looked at Tess with red-rimmed, frightened eyes, the papery skin on her cheeks damp.

‘I don’t know what these are,’ she said to Tess, holding them up.